Monday, February 2, 2015

Good article on "vetting" and opposition research - don't embarrass the team

Wanted to share this post by former Alberta NDP candidate Marc Power discussing the political vetting process for candidates. As someone who used to do exactly the kind of opposition research Mr. Power talks about in the post, I found it an interesting perspective.

Mr. Power also talks about how important the role of "the team" is in modern politics, and how one individual candidate who has a scandal emerge that could have otherwise been caught in background vetting can knock an entire election campaign off-track, most notably the case of Allan Hunsperger, the anti-gay "Lake of Fire" Wildrose candidate whose past homophobic remarks surfaced during the 2012 Alberta provincial election. The remarks were widely seen as a turning point in that campaign, allowing the Redford PC's to successfully paint Wildrose as being out of touch with modern Alberta.

Given that recent events have thrown the very future existence of the Wildrose Party into doubt, here is a great political what if - If Wildrose vetters had caught Hunsperger's comments and disallowed him as a candidate, would Wildrose have won that election? If instead of crossing the floor with most of her caucus, would Danielle Smith be Premier today?